Mayorkas impeachment goes down in flames while Mike Johnson’s Ukrainian headache persists

Congress had a whirlwind day on Wednesday. The Senate began and terminated the trial of Alejandro Mayorkas, Joe Biden’s director of Homeland Security, over the course of about four hours. Democrats, with their 51-vote majority in the upper chamber, voted to kill both of House Republicans’ long-awaited articles of impeachment, arguing in both cases that their rivals had failed to meet the standard of “high crimes and misdemeanors” set by the US Constitution.

Republicans railed against the largely predetermined outcome, calling it an abdication of the Senate’s constitutional duties and a dangerous precedent that will allow the chamber’s majority to reject any impeachment efforts going forward.

«It’s not a proud day in the history of the Senate,” fretted Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

But Democrats celebrated, calling it an end to a “baseless political stunt” played by their rivals in an election year.

“Once and for all, the Senate has rightly voted down this baseless impeachment that even conservative legal scholars said was unconstitutional. President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas will continue doing their jobs to keep America safe and pursue actual solutions at the border, and Congressional Republicans should join them, instead of wasting time on baseless political stunts while killing real bipartisan border security reforms,” said White House spokesman Ian Sams.

Across Congress, members of the House of Representatives were staying busy (and in front of the cameras) too. Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday unveiled his three-part plan to pass a supplemental national security package, which includes military and security assistance for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, while also allocating funds for humanitarian assistance in